This article pretty much strait forwardly explains God’s seventh day “rest” in Genesis Chapter 1 and 2. It talks about the purpose to have Adam(God formed) which was to bring the gentiles(which was created on sixth day) into perfecting(into his rest which have not yet passed) with God. It says about the six days when God ended with all his creative works and how on the seventh day God is resting from his work. Adam however was failed in his calling but through Jesus Christ we can now enter into his “rest” i.e. seventh day which is not yet completed.

Man was made toward the end of the sixth day and on the seventh day God rested that is no other species of life would appear in this seventh day because God had reached His goal of making man. To suppose that God rested for twenty four hours is quite ridiculous and particularly so when we see the testimony of the scriptures that God is upholding His creation all the time. Acts Ch-17: 24 to 28. “God giveth to all life, and breath and all things…for in Him we live and move and have our being.” God could never rest in the sense of ceasing to sustain His universe and it is quite clear that the sabbath of rest following the six creation days was in reference to the cessation of the production of new species, since the goal of all, man, had been reached.

Now we find this remarkable fact that the comment is made at the close of each of the six days of creation in the same words, “And the evening and the morning were the first (second, third…sixth) day.” See verses. 5,8,13,19,23,31. Yet there is no such description of the seventh day of rest! The phrase “evening and the morning” would seem to suggest that each day was complete with its particular objectives attained but no such comment is made in regard to the seventh day of rest. This means the “evening and the morning” of the seventh “day” have not yet passed and that the seventh “day” of rest is still in progress. That is God is still resting from His creative work which ended at the close of the sixth day in the appearnce of mankind. This is true to observed facts that ever since man has been on earth no new species of living creatures have appeared. As far back as the fossil remains of mankind go there are no traces in that time of any new species appearing on the earth. The various species of plant and animal life today go back unchanged to the days when man first appeared on the earth as evidenced by the fossils left in the river-beds, caves and rocks. Species have become extinct but no new ones have appeared. This means that God’s seventh “day” of resting from His creating of new species has already lasted and highest creature man appeared at the close of the sixth “day”. Moreover there is no record in the Bible that any eight day has commenced. This proves that we are still in the seventh “day” of God’s rest and that the previous six “days” of creation must likewise be long periods of time.

This conclusion is proved beyond question in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Ch- 3 and 4. There the writer shows that during this “days” of God’s rest it is His purpose to perfect mankind by which man will rest from all his struggles and so enter into and share God’s rest as it were. The Israelite of old were given an opportunity to perfect themselves by the revelation to them of the complete system of the law, the keeping of which in every detail would have made them perfect. However the flesh failed Israel who went in the opposite direction and took pleasure in breaking the Law instead of keeping them and God swear that they would never enter His rest that way as narrated in Psalms Ch-95, quoted in Hebrews Ch-3 and 4. Then it was revealed through the prophecies such as Psalms Ch-95 that there would be provided another opportunity for mankind to become perfect which Hebrews shows is fulfilled in the gracious gospel of Christ. The writer shows that man can never make himself perfect by his own fleshly endeavors but that only through the free gifts of Christ can he reach perfection and then rest from his own striving and so enter in to God’s “rest”. Only one man has so far been perfected and enter His rest the seventh “day of rest” must be very long period of time indeed. However long it may be it is conclusively proved from these verses in Hebrews Ch-3 and 4 that the seventh “day” of God’s creation week is already thousands years long and as the previous six days of the week must be in same length, they too must have been long ages of time and most certainly not twenty-four hours of each.

We read in Genesis Ch- 2: 3 that God blessed and sanctified the principle of the seventh day of rest. He did this by commanding Adam’s descendant to rest every seventh day from their work. This law was incorporated as the fourth commandment in the codification and completion of the Law through Moses. where the reason is again stated why God so blessed the principle of the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. In other words at the beginning of His work-man-a creature in His own image and further during that same seventh day man is being perfected ready for his glorious destiny of being set over the works of God’s hand as His ministers. Thus man’s sabbath or rest one day every week was a continual reminder to Adam’s descendants that God was resting from His creative activities because mankind was His highest and noblest creature and because God purposed no other species than man to accomplish His pleasure. It is interesting to realize that the Anglo-Saxon nations have added this sabbath law to their statue books. This should encourage English-speaking citizens who love their nation that we may be the first of the nations to enter into God’s “rest”. We can at least be inspired to work to that end and we can be certain that we are living in the blessed period when mankind will cease from its toil and struggles and be made perfect through Christ. This is the day when mankind will enter into God’s “rest” and then be set over his handi work as His administering servants.

Now we can see why it is that nowhere in the story of Adam is there any mention of God
“creating” anything but only of forming or making out of already existing matter. God was resting from creative activity and Adam was not a new species but a man exactly the same as the male and female mankind of Genesis Ch-1 who had appeared on the sixth day. The scriptures are careful to state that Adam was a man made in the image, that is a rational creature like the man of Genesis Ch-1 and that his descendants were in his own image, men also. This bears out the point that God’s “rest” is only from creating new species and that He is still working in the sense of upholding and sustaining His whole creation and in particular making man perfect. This is confirmed in the scene in John Ch-5:9 to 17 where the Jews accused Jesus of breaking the commandment to rest on the sabbath, when He healed the paralytic. Jesus answer to the Jews was “My Father worketh hitherto (lit ‘up till now’) and I work.” In other words the Jewish Sabbath was a memorial of God’s resting from His creation of new species not a memorial of a literal resting and doing nothing for twenty-hours or any other period.

God is still working, substantially, healing and fashioning man so that man could be perfected and enter also in to His “rest” from his struggles. Moreover, Jesus showed that his work was but the continuation of and expansion of the Father’s work in this great seventh “day” to lead man into the knowledge whereby he could be made perfect in God’s sight, worthy of his high destiny as God’s servant. The healing and teaching ministry of Jesus was accomplishing the very work characteristic of God’s seventh “day”.